The assessments analysed and modelled 17 circular economy actions across sectors such as housing, mining, food, and mobility, and saw not only positive environmental impact, but also economic benefits.
The briefing ‘The environmental and climate benefits of circular economy‘ saw that circular economy efforts had the potential to:
reduce the EU’s impact on climate change by 22%
reduce its impact on biodiversity loss by 19%
and reduce air pollution (fine particulate matter) by 25%.
Strategic investment could secure better access to materials and enable the creation of new businesses, reducing the EU’s reliance on raw materials from around the world. For example, the EU reliance on aluminium, nickel, and platinum group metals ores extracted in other world regions would decline by around 20%, and by 12% for copper.
Better circularity means better materials
In Europe, each person consumes 14.4 tonnes of materials each year and around 6 tonnes becomes material stock- embedded in buildings, infrastructure or machinery.
Improving the reusability of long-term use products like buildings, cars, roads or machinery can help reduce demand for new raw materials and enable more local businesses to become more cost-competitive. This would increase EU resource security and independence in turn, according to the EEA briefing ‘Material stocks in a circular economy’.
As a major importer, Europe’s actions to reduce demand for new materials over recycling existing material stocks has a ripple effect across the world. The emissions associated with extraction and transportation of raw materials from other parts of the world- who often face significant impact to their local environment in the process- would be reduced as a result of these measures.
Accelerated investment is needed across public and private financing
The EEA report ‘Unlocking the circular economy: investment needs, barriers and enabling conditions’, claimed that to meet existing circular economy objectives, more investment was needed, with a projected gap of around EUR 82 billion a year up to 2040.
Product design and end of life-stages were identified as areas needing the most focus, with sectoral gaps most notable in construction, textiles, and batteries and vehicles.
The report added that whilst private finance currently dominates investment, public funding plays an essential role in de-risking projects and enabling blended and long-term financing.
Structural economic and financial barriers all still need to be addressed, with policy action improving access to finance and marketability for circular projects. Better monitoring and analysis of financial flows will also aid the optimisation of projects, for both socio-economic and environmental benefits.